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ChinaBrazil berated on belated call of mad cow case

Sarina LockeUpdated
Tue 11 Dec 2012, 1:54 PM AEDT

Australia's beef industry is keeping a close watch on the global reaction to news that Brazil had a case of mad cow disease two years ago, but has only alerted markets now. The South American country is the world's biggest exporter of beef, earning around $5 billion a year from the trade. The Japanese government has now suspended its imports, but Russia, the world's largest importer of Brazilian beef, has yet to respond.

Transcript

ELEANOR HALL: Australia's beef industry is keeping a close watch on the global reaction to news that Brazil had a case of mad cow disease two years ago, but has only alerted markets now.

The South American country is the world's biggest exporter of beef, earning around $5 billion a year from the trade.

The Japanese government has now suspended its imports but Russia, the world's largest importer of Brazilian beef, has yet to respond.

Sarina Locke has the latest.

SARINA LOCKE: The test for proteins connected to BSE, or mad cow disease, on an old Brazilian cow two years ago came up negative, but a second test was ordered the middle of this year.

It's only just been confirmed that the 13-year-old cow was suffering from mad cow disease. Now Brazil faces the prospect of export bans, including the US.

Bill Bullard with the Ranchers and Cattlemen's Legal Action Fund:

BILL BULLARD: Well it appears that Brazil had just decided not to immediately disclose the detection of BSE in that country.

In fact, even after it's been confirmed that BSE was detected in the cow that died in December 2010, the official Brazilian word is that it's something like BSE but not BSE.

But the fact of the matter is they found the BSE prion in this cow, the information was forwarded to the World Organisation for Animal Health, and so it's now documented that Brazil did in fact have a BSE case in a cow that died in 2010.

SARINA LOCKE: Why are you worried about this delay of two years?

BILL BULLARD: Well we're very worried because we do not currently require the mitigation measures that are necessary for a country where BSE is known to exist, and that's why this morning we called on our US secretary of agriculture to immediately suspend imports of ruminants or ruminant products from Brazil.

SARINA LOCKE: Isn't this perhaps sour grapes because the US lost key markets in Japan and Korea, when you had a case of BSE and they banned imports in 2003?

BILL BULLARD: Well that's a necessary measure in order to prevent the global spread of BSE. The United States closed its border to Canada when Canada first detected BSE, and that border remained closed for several years.

We do not object to Japan's and South Korea's measures that impose very strict conditions on US imports.

SARINA LOCKE: Brazil's exports are worth roughly $5 billion a year, and its domestic market to 200 million consumers is also large.

Meat and Livestock Australia's chief economist, Tim McRae, says its watching the issue closely, but so far Japan is the only country to ban Brazilian beef.

TIM MCRAE: Last year in 2011, they took around 1,500 tonnes, so really in the scale of things that's not much at all when you're looking at an import market in Japan that takes around 850,000 tonnes. So a very small player in that market.

SARINA LOCKE: But with Brazil, we are looking at the world's largest exporter, so which countries would be closely watching this issue?

TIM MCRAE: We are very closely watching any decisions by Russia. They are the largest market for Brazilian beef, they take - so far this year they've taken 222,000 tonnes, and Russia is the world's largest beef importing market. So we're watching them very closely.

And Brazil and Russia also have a history of having some trade issues about food safety.

SARINA LOCKE: What do you think will be the impact on Australian exports?

TIM MCRAE: The only market that we've seen that's made a line in the sand decision if you like is Japan. Brazil has some pretty significant markets but not the size of Russia. You're looking at the likes of Egypt, Hong Kong, there's Venezuela and Chile, we're watching those markets very closely.

So there could be some changes, but you know we're still just watching and waiting. It's still been only under 48 hours since this was announced.